Agile: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review

by Harvard Business Review

Overview

More than a buzzword, agile is a powerful business tool for all.

To the uninitiated, agile is a software development and project management process involving white boards, colored Post-it Notes, and stand-up meetings. It may seem as though agile doesn’t and won't ever apply to you. But agile is here to stay, and its benefits can be realized beyond IT and project management into other areas of your business. If you're a leader, it's worth exploring how your group can benefit from the higher productivity and morale agile brings.

Agile: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review brings you today's most essential thinking on agile, from exploring the conditions under which agile is most effective and easiest to implement to reducing new-product development risk to bringing the most valuable products and features to market faster and more predictably. The lessons in this book will help you introduce agile into a broader range of activities and accelerate profitable growth for your company.

Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind?
Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues—blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more—each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas—and prepare you and your company for the future.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781633698956
Publisher:	Harvard Business Review Press
Publication date:	04/21/2020
Series:	HBR Insights Series
Pages:	176
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Harvard Business Review is the leading destination for smart management thinking. Through its flagship magazine, 12 international licensed editions, books from Harvard Business Review Press, and digital content and tools published on HBR.org, Harvard Business Review provides professionals around the world with rigorous insights and best practices to lead themselves and their organizations more effectively and to make a positive impact.

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Table of Contents

Introduction Agile: How to Get in the Game (and Not Get in the Way) ix

Good intentions aren't enough Darrell K. Rigby

1 Agile at Scale 1

Create a truly flexible organization Darrell K. Rigby Jeff Sutherland Andy Noble

2 Why Agile Goes Awry 29

And how to fix it Lindsay McGregor Neel Doshi

3 How to Make Sure Agile Teams Can Work Together 43

Combine-and recombine-essential expertise Alia Crocker Rob Cross Heidi K. Gardner

4 How Nextdoor Addressed Racial Profiling on Its Platform 59

A data-oriented approach helped the social network recover-quickly Phil Simon

5 HR Goes Agile 67

Agile is transforming how organizations hire, develop, and manage their people Peter Cappelli Anna Tavis

6 How to Make Agile Work for the C-Suite 93

Set the tone for your organization Eric Carton Andy Noble

7 How Agile Teams Can Kelp Turnarounds Succeed 103

Tap the people who are better at handling variable and unpredictable situations Darrell K. Rigby Simon Henderson Marco D'Avino

8 Making Process Improvements Stick 111

Don't let early excitement lead to backsliding

About the Contributors 121

Index 125